Less playoff buffer for Kyle Larson at Watkins Glen

CONCORD, N.C. — Kyle Larson said his crash in Sunday’s race at Atlanta Motor Speedway was a matter of briefly losing control, the result of a mounting set of circumstances through the high-banked first and second turns. The impact — compounded by the arrival and involvement of Chase Briscoe’s No. 14 Ford — has made his circumstance in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs a tighter one.

Larson will attempt to regain control of his postseason footing in Sunday’s Go Bowling at The Glen (3 p.m. ET, USA, NBC Sports App, MRN, SiriusXM) at Watkins Glen International. He’s won there twice in the last three years, and his Hendrick Motorsports team currently rides a five-race win streak at the New York road circuit.

Larson spoke Tuesday from Charlotte Motor Speedway, where Hendrick and Arrow McLaren announced a second attempt at running the Indianapolis 500 and Coca-Cola 600 in the same day in 2025. He said that the harsh nature of the wreck at Atlanta left him with some soreness, in addition to his 37th-place finish and fifth crash-related DNF of the season.

“I felt fine, and I was just a little bit stiff (Monday) and less (Tuesday), but I just got loose,” Larson said. “The cars, when you get off-set halfway of the guy in front of you, you lose a lot of downforce, and I was just kind of living in that pocket, and I felt fine, and then it just started stepping out. I think the tires are so stiff for speedways, the car setups are stiff, it just makes reactions harder. You saw Chris Buescher do pretty much the same thing as me. I was going to crash that corner. I was either going to hit driver’s side or nose it in, and unfortunately nosed in.”

The Stage 1 exit in Sunday’s postseason opener chipped away at Larson’s cushion in the Cup Series standings. The 32-year-old driver entered Atlanta as the points leader but dropped to 10th in the playoff pecking order, just 15 points above the provisional elimination line with two races left in the Round of 16 — Sunday at The Glen and the following weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Larson noted how Watkins Glen has been a favorable venue for the No. 5 team to potentially rebound, but acknowledged that projections of significant tire wear at the 2.45-mile road course are expected to affect the race’s complexion.

“I mean, I think always that points are going to be on your mind a little bit, so I can’t deny that,” Larson said, “but I’m happy that we’re going to a style of track that we’re competitive at, but there’s still the unknown of the tire wear and the hype behind the fall-off, which I do believe there’s going to be a lot of fall-off. So yeah, we’ll see, but I think as long as you can have a solid day, and hopefully we can gain 10 to 15 points on the cut line and I would feel much better about things going into Bristol.”

MORE: Watkins Glen weekend schedule

Larson just missed on having an extra buffer for the balance of the Cup Series Playoffs, having come up short by a single point to Tyler Reddick in the hunt for the Regular Season Championship. Instead of collecting a 15-playoff-point bonus, Larson was awarded 10 playoff points as the regular season’s runner-up.

Larson competed in 25 of the 26 regular-season races, missing out on the Coca-Cola 600 when rain delayed his Indy 500 efforts. Even a last-place finish in the Charlotte 600-miler could have made the difference in the regular-season title chase, but Larson said other missed opportunities in the season’s first seven months also factored in.

“I think it’s really easy for everybody to just look at one race and forget about all the races that I’ve crashed in or whatever that have also contributed to me … all I needed was one more point,” Larson said. “It could have been in any race that could have got me (one point), so I don’t view it as if I would have skipped the Indy 500 and come here and run, that’s the one thing that’s going to change my season.”

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Kyle Larson carries less buffer in Cup Series Playoffs picture into Watkins Glen